6 ARBOR DAY 



of the wheat crop, ten times that of gold and silver, 

 and forty times that of our iron ore. 



It was high time that we considered the trees. 

 They are among our chief benefactors, but they are 

 much better friends to us than ever we have been to 

 them. If, as the noble horse passes us, tortured 

 with the overdraw check and the close blinders and 

 nagged with the goad, it is impossible not to pity 

 him that he has been delivered into the hands of men 

 to be cared for, not less is the tree to be pitied. It 

 seems as if we had never forgotten or forgiven that 

 early and intimate acquaintance with the birch, 

 and have been revenging ourselves ever since. We 

 have waged against trees, a war of extermination 

 like that of the Old Testament Christians of Massa- 

 chusetts Bay against the Pequot Indians. We have 

 treated the forests as if they were noxious savages 

 or vermin. It was necessary, of course, that the 

 continent should be suitably cleared for settlement 

 and agriculture. But there was no need of shaving 

 it as with a razor. If Arbor Day teaches the growing 

 generation of children that in clearing a field some 

 trees should be left for shade and for beauty, it will 

 have rendered good service. In regions rich with 

 the sugar-maple tree the young maples are safe 

 from the general massacre because their sap, turned 

 into sugar, is a marketable commodity. But every 

 tree yields some kind of sugar, if it be only a shade 

 for a cow. 



